MOSCOW, April 1. /TASS/. European nations might need a conference to ‘reboot’ the entire world after the coronavirus pandemic, similar to one that took place in 1945 in Yalta, says Valdai member Elena Alekseyenkova, who heads the Center for Italian Studies of Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Europe.
"We are already hearing voices coming from Europe that compare the pandemic with World War II, and this probably means that after the pandemic ends, Europe is going to need a new Yalta, new agreements on what life after the pandemic would be," she underscored.
"The EU will, apparently, face a new round of crisis of trust in supranational institutions. Amid the rapidly developing pandemic, we see how Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron’s worst nightmares came true. The single Schengen Area has been suspended, and all migration has ceased. Amid the state of emergency, national states take their own sovereign decisions based on their own governments’ evaluation of how effective their restrictive measures are," the expert noted.
According to Alekseyenkova, EU member nations divide people into "ours" and "aliens," allowing the former to return and barring entry for the latter.
"It looks like some modern nations have long lost skills of rapidly mobilizing domestic resources," she concluded.
The ongoing crisis highlights the issue of the EU’s global positioning, Alekseyenkova said. The question arises of whether the EU can offer the world a unified response to global challenges, if the bloc "displays its uncompetitiveness compared to its own member state," she said.
Besides, it remains unclear whether the supranational union will be able to come up with an effective solution to restore the economy once the pandemic ends, the analyst specified.